Death Valley National Monument

I've visited Death Valley twice over the years...once in late September and another in April...times of the year when the temperatures are quite cooler than in the summer. This area has its' own distinctive beauty to it and if you can deal with the 'remoteness' of it, you will enjoy visiting.Death Valley is the lowest, driest and hottest valley in the United States. It is the location of the lowest elevation in North America at 281 feet below sea level. It holds the highest recorded temperature in the Western Hemisphere. It has an area of about 3,000 square miles.

The valley was named for an incident around the time of the 1849 Gold Rush period when a group of travelers in search of a short cut wandered away from the caravan and perished in the desert.

Temperatures in the Valley can range from up to 130 degrees in the day in the summer, to below freezing at night in the winter. The lowest temperature on record at Furnace Creek Inn is 15 °F . The National Climatic Center reports that temperatures at Furnace Creek reach 90 °F (32 °C) on an average of 189.3 days annually and 100 °F on an average of 138.0 days annually